Johnny Cash: The Life (15 page)

It was only April.

Cash returned to Memphis early in the month for a concert at the Ellis Auditorium, and Phillips took advantage of his brief time in town to bring Cash and the Tennessee Two into the studio to put the next single on tape. Phillips thought Cash’s sound needed shaking up, and he asked his production assistant Jack Clement, who had been having success with Jerry Lee Lewis in the studio, to help him think of ways to dress up Cash’s minimalist approach. But Clement held back; he had so much respect for anyone who could write a song as iconic as “I Walk the Line” that he felt a bit intimidated as Cash recorded “Don’t Make Me Go” and “Next in Line,” a pair of melancholy love songs.

Cash’s vocal was unusually lifeless on “Next in Line,” and Grant and Perkins seemed equally colorless on “Don’t Make Me Go,” the stronger of the two tunes. Phillips had plenty of material after three tries at “Next in Line,” but he apparently thought enough of “Don’t Make Me Go” to get Cash to run through it ten times in hopes of injecting more pulse into it. Clement’s input was so minimal that he didn’t even mention it years later when he spoke of Cash and the Sun era. Record buyers didn’t show much more interest in the single. “Next in Line” stalled at number nine on the country chart—Cash’s lowest position since “Cry, Cry, Cry”—and made it only to number ninety-nine in the pop field. Meanwhile, Cash and Perkins watched Jerry Lee Lewis’s second single, “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” race into the Top 10 on both the pop and country charts. It was Sun’s biggest hit since “Blue Suede Shoes,” and its success gave Clement the confidence to take more of a leadership role the next time out with Cash—if Phillips asked again.

Phillips went him one better. Rather than asking Clement to assist in the studio, Phillips had him take over as Cash’s producer. If Cash wasn’t coming up with new hits himself, maybe Clement could help him find some good songs by other writers. Cash was hurt when he learned that Phillips was turning him over to Clement; he wrongly assumed Phillips had lost faith in him. Around the same time, he also heard from artists on other labels that his three-cent royalty rate was too low; they were getting four and five cents a record. The difference in a million-seller like “Blue Suede Shoes” could be up to $20,000, a huge amount in 1957.

Cash suddenly felt underappreciated and underpaid. Seeing Elvis’s success, he asked his manager, “Do you think RCA Victor might be interested in me, too?” Because of his ties to Phillips, Neal tried to assure Cash that things were fine with Sun. He said he’d talk to Sam about getting a higher royalty rate.

Clement felt that Cash misunderstood the dynamics at Sun. “He was the last one of his artists that Sam let me work with,” he says. “John was his fair-haired boy. [Sam] loved his music. He respected him and enjoyed working with him, but he thought John needed a new voice with him in the studio. Maybe Sam should have explained the situation better to John.”

On the long car rides, Cash thought hard about his writing, trying to figure out what was different between some of his best early songs and the ones he’d been writing recently. He realized he had drifted away from writing from his personal experience. Wanting to get back to that approach, Cash recalled the time a stranger came up to him backstage during his first trip to California. The man had just been released from prison and was looking forward to going home to Shreveport to see his wife. But he didn’t know how or when he could get there because he was broke and jobless. He knew that Cash was a regular on the Louisiana Hayride and asked him to say hello to his wife if he got to Shreveport first.

The story reminded Cash of his own bouts with loneliness, and he liked the idea of telling a different kind of prisoner story. In writing it, he tried to include the kind of sentimental undercurrents that Jimmie Rodgers would have put into it. He even wrote some railroad imagery into the opening line of “Give My Love to Rose”:

This wasn’t just a weeper for Phillips or a generic song for the jukebox. This was a song Cash felt deeply, a real J.R. number. He liked the idea of casting a prisoner in a tender light because it meshed with his Baptist values of forgiveness. He liked the song so much, he used his older daughter’s nickname in it.

When Cash got back to Memphis in late June, he played it for Clement, who shared Cash’s fondness for the song, though he privately wondered whether DJs would find it too slow-paced. Clement was more enthusiastic about the chances of another song Cash played for him, an upbeat bluesy number that fit Phillips’s recipe for a hit: a sad song with a happy beat. It was “Home of the Blues,” and Clement knew right away that this was going to be the time to give Cash some studio flash.

On the record credits, Cash was joined for the first time by two co-writers, Vic McAlpin and Glenn Douglas Tubb. In truth Cash didn’t write it at all, except for perhaps a couple of words. Grant says McAlpin had brought the song to Cash and offered him part of the songwriting rights if he’d record it. That was a fairly common practice in Nashville at the time, as songwriters competed against one another to get hit singers to record their songs. In addition, some songwriters were so desperate for rent money that they’d sell the rights to their songs to singers or other writers for as little as $50 to $100.

None of that was Clement’s concern. He just wanted a hit as they headed into the studio on July 1. It’s easy to see how the song would appeal to Cash’s and Clement’s sense of drama and despair. When read aloud, the lyrics almost sound like a parody of a barroom lament. Yet Cash told the story with empathy, and Clement instilled in it an emotional resolve that made “Home of the Blues” one of the most striking country singles of that year. The record opens with a series of lonely guitar notes, each deliberately descending the musical scale. After the final note, Cash’s voice begins amid some rollicking blues and country piano strains. It was a major overhaul of the Cash sound.

Cash didn’t quite know what to think of “Home of the Blues.” The emphasis was on the production, not on him or the Tennessee Two. Looking back, Grant said the switch from Sam Phillips to Jack Clement was uncomfortable for everyone. “When Jack came along, everything changed,” he said. “With Sam, he pretty much let us do our thing. Everything you hear on those early songs came from the heart. Jack had his own ideas about how the record should sound. He wanted to add things. I think John felt like he was losing control of his own music.”

When Clement played “Home of the Blues” for Phillips, the Sun owner rushed the single to DJs. Cash was thankful for a few days off in August so that he could spend time with the family, and photos show them happily at play. Yet Cash was still concerned about his status at Sun as he headed back to California, where a top Nashville record executive with perfect timing asked, “How would you feel about joining Columbia Records?”

Don Law came to the United States from his native England in the early 1920s and got started in the record business a decade later after meeting a fellow Brit who was a legendary figure in the music world. Uncle Art Satherley had discovered, signed, or recorded such landmark artists as Gene Autry, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, Lefty Frizzell, and Roy Acuff. After learning his way around the recording studio from Satherley, working with such seminal blues artists as Robert Johnson and Ma Rainey, Law was named head of Columbia Records’ country division in 1953. He produced giant hits, including Ray Price’s “Crazy Arms” and Marty Robbins’s “Singing the Blues.”

Law was drawn to the sincerity and straightforwardness of Cash’s voice as soon as he heard “Hey, Porter.” He felt that this Memphis newcomer’s future looked even brighter after hearing “Folsom Prison Blues” and “I Walk the Line.” When Cash’s name came up during a conversation in Nashville with the Collins Kids, who were Columbia artists, Law told Larry and Lorrie that he’d like to meet the singer. They said Cash was going to be on Town Hall Party on August 31 and suggested Law come to Los Angeles and meet him. “He’s a really nice guy,” they told him.

The Columbia executive was at Town Hall Party that night to see Cash and Carl Perkins, whom he was also interested in signing. Larry and Lorrie introduced Law and Cash backstage. It wasn’t a good place to talk business, so Law was delighted to learn that Cash was planning to attend a barbecue the next day at the Collinses’ home. After seeing Cash convey such authority onstage, Law was surprised to find how “sensitive, warm—and very nervous” Cash was offstage. It’s understandable that Cash was anxious. He knew about Law’s standing in the music industry, and after feeling he’d been cut loose by Phillips, he was eager for validation.

Law was aware that Cash’s Sun contract didn’t expire until July 31, 1958, but he wanted to sign him early because he believed that other labels would also be after him. Law even had terms ready. He offered Cash five cents per record in royalties, two cents more than Sun, plus a $50,000 signing bonus. He also promised Cash total freedom in the studio. “Even gospel music, Mr. Law?” Cash asked. Law nodded. “Even gospel music.” Knowing what an important decision it would be for Cash, Law urged him to go home and talk it over with his wife. He said he’d call in a few weeks.

Meeting Law wasn’t the only noteworthy thing about Cash’s return to California. Johnny was surprised to find how glad he was to see Lorrie Collins. She was still only fifteen, but she was so poised that she seemed closer to nineteen or twenty. Lorrie was both flattered and confused by his obvious interest.

“We’d talk backstage and he told me he liked me,” she says. “He was still real shy, kinda looking at his shoes rather than me. I was nervous because he was married and had kids.” Cash was also puzzled by the sudden attraction. It was the first time he’d felt truly drawn to someone since meeting Vivian. In the coming months, he kept asking himself what it was about Lorrie that so appealed to him.

After remaining in Los Angeles a few days to have his tonsils removed, Cash returned to Memphis, where he had a month off before starting another tour in Georgia. He spent the first week wrestling with the implications of the move to Columbia. On the one hand, there was the matter of loyalty to Phillips. He also trusted Sam’s judgment. On the other hand, Phillips had turned him over to Clement. Columbia, meanwhile, was the big time. He’d be on the same label as Ray Price and Marty Robbins and Carl Smith. He’d have the chance to record gospel music and maybe even a concept album like
Folk Songs of the Hills.

Vivian said she’d be happy whatever his decision. Marshall had mixed feelings. He thought it would be a gamble going to Columbia and Nashville, but he also could see that things were beginning to wind down at Sun. “As soon as Jack Clement came in, Sam started turning his attention elsewhere,” Grant said, as well as “spending a lot of time by his pool.” Luther left the decision to John and Marshall. After all, they’d be going to Columbia together and would continue to share in the record royalties.

Still uncertain, Cash went to see Phillips. Without telling him about the Columbia offer, he pointed out the three-cent royalty rate in his contract and asked Phillips to raise it. He would have stayed if Phillips had offered him even a penny increase, Cash later said, but Phillips refused. Cash had his answer. When Law phoned him soon after the meeting with Phillips, Cash didn’t even wait for Law to ask if he wanted to sign with the label. He said, “If you still want me, Mr. Law, I want to sign with you.”

It was just a week after the Columbia decision that Cash’s life would take another seismic shift: he would take his first amphetamine.

Gordon Terry, a champion fiddler from Alabama with a wide, disarming smile and a good word for everybody, was performing with Cash in the fall of 1957 when he heard Johnny complain that he was so tired he didn’t know if he’d be able to do the show the next night. (Some later said that the incident took place in Jacksonville; others thought it was somewhere in Georgia.) Eager to help, Terry, who regularly took pills to keep alert on the road, reached into his pocket and pulled out some little tablets.

The pill was amphetamine, and it worked wonders. Cash not only felt energized but also felt more confident onstage that night. He started to feel the shyness melt away; this is what he always thought performing should be like.

The next day he tracked Terry down and asked where he could get some more of those pills. Were they legal? Oh, sure, Terry told him. Any doctor would prescribe them. Terry then reached into his pocket and gave Cash a dozen or so of the pills.

When the two ran into each other a couple of days later, Terry was surprised to hear Cash ask if he had some more pills.

But Cash was not a man for moderation. He was soon craving more pills, and to his delight, he found them easy to get. When he ran low on the road, he would just pick up the yellow pages and find the number of a local doctor. “I’d just say something like, ‘Doc, this is Johnny Cash. I’ve got a long tour comin’ up and I gotta do a lot of night drivin’. I need some of those diet pills to keep me awake.”